Monday 9 December 2013

Meet mid-day meal beneficiaries of Odisha

As a functioning mid-day meal NGO in Odisha, The Akshaya Patra Foundation is able to feed many dreams of thousands of mid-day meal beneficiaries. The Foundation runs two formats of kitchens to prepare the mid-day meals for these beneficiaries-- centralised and decentralised kitchens.

It runs the centralised kitchen in Puri and the decentralised format in Nayagarh. The cooked mid-day meals from the kitchens are transported to the beneficiary schools in custom-designed vehicles to keep the food fresh till it is served. The feeding programme of this NGO in Orissa began in June 2006 and currently it feeds 80, 415 mid-day meal beneficiaries in 1000 Government schools.

The Government of Puri appoints few individuals at the beginning of each academic year to identify school drop-outs and bring them back to school. They also create awareness about the significance of education in the community. Here is an anecdote on Tanku Behra and Sankar Behra who were brought back to school. Aged 11 and 13 respectively, the brothers duo were found doing menial jobs.

They were then brought to a Primary School in Bhudan Nagar. This school is also one of the feeding schools of this NGO in Odisha. However as the brothers were not even well versed with the basics of reading and writing they were enrolled in Standard I. Soon they caught up with their studies and are in Standard III now. Even though Tanku is a polio victim, he is independent and handles day-to-day activities without any help.

According to their teacher Prabhamani, both the brothers have shown considerable improvements overall. Their health too has improved considerably. She says they eagerly wait for Akshaya Patra mid-day meals.

The mid-day meals provided by this NGO in Odisha further motivate them to come to school every day.

Read more such stories of mid-day meal beneficiaries in http://www.akshayapatra.org/stories-children. Be an active participant in changing the life of many such mid-day meal beneficiaries.

Choose to donate, volunteer or partner with Akshaya Patra for CSR opportunities. Know more about the functioning of this NGO in Odisha.

Show your support to feed the children of today to make it a hopeful tomorrow! 

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